Activating the ILM policy

After you add ILM rules to a proposed ILM policy, simulate the policy, and confirm it behaves as you expect, you are ready to activate the proposed policy.

Before you begin

You must be signed in to the Grid Manager using a supported browser.

To perform this task, you need specific access permissions. For details, see information about controlling system access with administration user accounts and groups.

You have saved and simulated the proposed ILM policy.

CAUTION:

Errors in an ILM policy can cause unrecoverable data loss. Carefully review and simulate the policy before activating it to confirm that it will work as intended. When a new ILM policy goes into effect, the StorageGRID Webscale system immediately uses it to manage all objects in the grid, including existing objects and newly ingested objects.

About this task

When you activate an ILM policy, the system distributes the new policy to all nodes. However, the new active policy might not actually take effect until all grid nodes are available to receive the new policy. In some cases, the system waits to implement a new active policy to ensure that grid objects are not accidentally removed.

If you make policy changes that increase data redundancy or durability, those changes are implemented immediately. For example, if you activate a new policy that uses a Make 3 Copies rule instead of a Make 2 Copies rule, that policy will be implemented right away because it increases data redundancy.

If you make policy changes that could decrease data redundancy or durability, those changes will not be implemented until all grid nodes are available. For example, if you activate a new policy that uses a Make 2 Copies rule instead of a Make 3 Copies rule, the new policy will be marked as "Active," but it will not take effect until all nodes are online and available.

Steps

When you are ready to activate a proposed policy, select the policy on the ILM Policies page and click
Activate.

A warning message is displayed, prompting you to confirm that you want to activate the proposed policy.

Click OK.

Result

When a new ILM policy has been activated:

The policy is shown with a Policy State of Active in the table on the ILM Policies page. The Start Date entry indicates the date and time the policy was activated.

The previously active policy is shown with a Policy State of Historical. The Start Date and End Date entries indicate when the policy became active and when it was no longer in effect.